Failing Miserably at Understanding
by cataclysmically starry-minded
Summary: Dudley and Harry have a heated argument, each trying to persuade the other that their own life isn't all peaches and cream (or, in Harry's world, chocolate frogs and peppermint Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans). {After OotP}


Failing Miserably at Understanding

I do not own Harry Potter, nor am I making a profit from this.

A/N: I wanted to experiment with Dudley and Harry and this is the result. I wonder if I've made Dudley too smart, but I'm fairly pleased with this. 

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"You sit there, on your spoiled arse and tell me that I am greedy?" Harry looked disbelievingly at his cousin, who seemed positively petrified at Harry's outbreak. However, Dudley gave him a defiant look. He had, moments before, scowled at Harry in an uncharacteristically brave way, and told him he was a horrible person for not appreciating all his parents had done for their abnormal nephew. 

"Well," Dudley continued in weaker voice but strong nonetheless, "you tell the freaks you talk to that we're awfully mean to you. My parents could've chucked you in an orphanage when they found you on our doorstep." Harry was gaping at Dudley. "But you don't tell them that you threaten us, or—or inflate family members when they make you the slightest bit angry. You sit there, and you don't give a damn about anyone but yourself." These comments broke Harry out of his silence.

"You don't know who I am at all, Dudley," he said in a low, menacing voice, "You don't understand what I've been thr—"

"Don't talk to me like that! I know you're a stupid weirdo! You've been through _nothing_. Just because you may be a little famous in your world, it doesn't mean a thing here. The attention has gone to your head."

"How would you know, Dudley?" Harry was about to loose his temper. "You weren't there. How can you claim to understand?" 

"Don't act like a tragic hero! You hurt innocent people. You try to get people to hurt us—" 

"Don't talk to me about innocents! You have no right."

"What do you mean?"

"D'you really believe that you and your family are saints? Your parents, they locked me in the cupboard under the stairs while you had two rooms to call your own! You got mounds of presents on holidays and your birthday. The last birthday present I got from your parents was a coat hanger! I had no friends until I was eleven. None! You would constantly attack me. Does that make you a good person?"

"You deserved it, you know you did!"

"What the hell did I do to deserve bring locked under the stairs when I was three?

"You were abnormal—"

"_Abnormal?! Are you even listening to yourself? That's one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard."_

"It's not! You're a freak and you deserved to be treated like one!"

"Dudley, shut up before you back yourself into a corner more than you already are."

"There you go again!" Dudley had gone red in the face, seeming awfully like Uncle Vernon. "Don't tell _me to shut up! Acting like you're king of the world just because you're famous!"_

"Do you actually think I want all this attention?" Harry roared. "Do you think that I'm happy my parents died?"

"Yes, yes I do. I know you; you'd give anything to be popular."

"You _don't know me Dudley, how many times must I tell you?!"_

"I do too—"

"You do, do you? You know what I see when dementors get near me? You know how the newspaper was calling me an attention starved nutter?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You know that Voldemort would do anything to kill me? That I've seen two, not one, _two people die because of me? That I will either have to murder or be murdered? Don't sit there and pretend that you know me, because you never will."_

"You're lying." Spittle was clinging to Dudley's lips. "_You're lying!"_

"Bloody hell, Dudley, I am not! Did you chalk my life up to be some perfect existence?"

"You don't know how hard life is! You haven't had people exclude you or tease you!"

"D'you realize what you're saying? You teased me through school, everybody made fun of me. I had no friends, as I've told you before!" 

"Well, you were used to it. You were a freak!"

"I was a _human, a child. You didn't know I was a wizard!"_

"I was doing the right thing."

"What you did, what you _do, that's not justified at all."_

"It is!"

"You beat up younger children. Five to one. Why, Dudley, why? Because it makes you feel special."

"No it doesn't."

"Yes it does! Don't deny it. You're sick of not being popular at school, so you take it out on others."

"You don't know what you're talking about. I have too many friends to count!"

"If your appearance doesn't put them off and your personality doesn't make them disgusted, then they must be lacking in the intelligence department."

"Don't lecture me on things like that! You don't have many friends either!"

"I'm not denying it, Dudley. Most people only like me because I'm _famous Harry Potter_."

"You're flattering yourself."

"You miss the point. I don't need to curse people to boost my self-esteem."

"You're being stupid!"

"If I am, then you most certainly are! You're like your mother; you can't believe things until you see that they're actually real."

"Don't drag my mother into this, Potter."

"She's part of the problem! She spoils you endlessly! She's turned you into a complete monster!"

"Shut your face!"

"What's the point of this anyway, I've forgotten."

"It's not my fault you're being childish!" 

"Me, childish! I don't have to listen to this!"

"Then leave!"

"I WILL!"

**_SLAM!!_**

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End

A/N: Hee!!


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